Chapter 2 - Agents of Espionage

Zithtral sat at his desk, looking through the reports his agents turn-in every week on their espionage missions across the galaxy. Thumbing through the reports, he found that one of his agents had not turned in his weekly report. This particular mission was the most important mission of them all - to stalk a certain senator and get the plans of a new weapon. Normally, Zithtral would have one of his own kind infiltrate governments, but he decided on a human for this job, after learning that Bakurans are not particulary fond of aliens. He wanted certain technology for himself and developed a spy system throughout the Bakuran government by placing videobugs in all government offices.

One of those offices was Gaeriel Captison's.

Gaeriel Captison would not love a Cretaphalon, he thought. His kind scared people enough with their given names, let alone with the properties of their kind. He pulled the latest hologram of Senator Captison, turning a soft lavender while looking at the hologram.

Pollard Tevloor walked into the office. "Sorry I'm so late with the report about Senator Captison. I had to acquire some additional information on the case," Pollard said, "It required some methods you would be proud of. It's the reason why I'm personally handing in my report instead of by holovid. "

Zithtral turned back to his normal orange coloring. "Nevermind. Let me see the report."

Pollard pulled the data card out of his pocket and quickly handed it to Zithtral, who snatched it faster than Pollard could blink.

Zithtral put the data card into the appropriate socket on his console and began reading the report.

The report contained very mundane items about Senator Captison, but one item stood out from all of the others - Gaeriel telling her 'trusted aid' Pollard that she was taking a personal leave of absense.

"What does this mean 'personal leave of absense', Pollard?" Zithtral said as he turned a tomato-red.

"Sir, she has disappeared, but I know where she is," Pollard said.

"Oh? Well, why don't you amuse me and tell me!"

"I'll do better than that. I have the recordings of her conversation with General Antilles and a holovid conversation with a Luke Skywalker. I went to Eppie Belden to find out her whereabouts, and I got rid of that old hag for good, but I did get the information." Pollard handed the tapes to Zithtral.

The first one Zithtral placed into the socket was Gaeriel's conversation with General Antilles:

Gaeriel was sitting at her desk, with a pair of goggles over her eyes, very relaxed.

"Senator, General Antilles is here," Pollard announced over the intercom.

"Good. Send him in," she responded.

Wedge Antilles entered the office wearing civilian clothing instead of his officer's uniform. "Senator Captison, I'm Wedge Antilles," he said.

Gaeriel took off the goggles and gently placed them on her desk. "Please sit down," she said to Wedge. "Please close the door, Pollard."

"Uh, yeah," Pollard said as he exited the room and closed the door.

"I see you are not here for the New Republic," Gaeriel said.

"Oh, the clothes. Well, I'm on Bakura for the New Republic, but I came to visit you as a favor to a friend. He wants to know how you and Eppie Belden are doing, Senator," Wedge said.

Gaeriel straighten her back. "Please, call me Gaeriel. You're visiting me because Luke wants to know how I am? That's pretty ironic, General. I called him earlier today."

"Call me Wedge. You talked to Luke? What did he say?"

"Well, he said he's going to Tatooine. He invited me to join him. I'm going to pick up the instructions from Eppie later today. My computer cannot encrypt and decode like Eppie's talking computer. I've even been doing my own research about Tatooine."

"Not much on the planet, considering it's all desert."

"Yeah. I've been looking at views of the planet in these virtual goggles." She handed the goggles to Wedge.

Wedge put them on. "Everything's the same on Tatooine. On Corellia, where I'm from, you can do many things and never get bored."

"Sounds like you're homesick?"

"Yeah, I guess. I left home after my parents died and joined the Rebellion. That's where I met Luke. Ah, the good old days."

"I can program the viewers to project images of Corellia."

Wedge handed the goggles to Gaeriel. She placed the goggles into a drawer into her computer. She typed some instructions into the keyboard, then pulled the goggles out of the drawer and handed them to Wedge.

Wedge put them on and smiled at the images flashing before his eyes. "Very impressive. Who developed these? Where can I get a pair?"

"These virtual goggles are one-of-a-kind. Eppie made them for me. I store everything in these, especially government secrets."

Wedge handed them back. "Too bad. They would be great as an entertainment item. What else can these goggles do?"

"I can program things into the goggles just like a normal computer by just thinking about the item to be programmed. Do you think we could talk somewhere else? I just remembered that I have to consult a New Republic representative about a weapon that Eppie developed. I don't feel quite secure in my office these days."

"Sure. Lead the way."

The two of them left the office.

The tape ended. Zithtral then stuck in the conversation with Luke Skywalker into the socket. The vocals on the holovid were not present. Zithtral watched with extreme concentration, causing him to turn a navy blue.Zithtral finally turned to face Pollard, who was standing behind him. "How could you let her leave? Damn!" He slammed his fists on his desk. "Why is she talking with a Jedi Knight?"

"A Jedi? What are you talking about?" Pollard asked.

"This Luke Skywalker is a Jedi Knight. He asked her to accompany him to Tatooine. You're very lucky I can read lips or I would kill you with my bare feet. That's where she is. I want her - dead or alive. If it's dead, at least I can extract the information she has in her memory once her brain is put into stasis."

"You want me to go to Tatooine to hunt her down. Do you know that's next to impossible now that she has a Jedi guarding her?"

"What an opprotunity. I've been wondering what kind of knowledge this Jedi keeps in his memory. Why don't you do something about him as well."

"Sir, this is a Jedi we are talking about here. What do you want me to do, sabatoge his spacecraft?" Pollard said sarcastically.

"Excellent idea. I'll assign Teitrak to you. She's the best sabatoge mechanic we have. Her properties will be useful to succeed. Now, get out of here! The next time I hear from you, I want to hear you succeeded." Zithtral then shot out his immense puce tongue at Pollard, striking the agent in the forehead and stunning him, causing him to collapse onto the floor.

Several minutes later, Pollard got off the floor, using the desk to help himself up. "I will not fail you," he said nearly out of breath, then walked out of the room.

Teitrak un-cloaked herself. She was sitting in the corner of the room, observing the conversation per orders from Zithtral. She was a lighter shade of orange from Zithtral's, more feminine to complement her veluptuous body. "Still obsessed with that b!tch, Zithtral?"

Zithtral remained a calm orange. "I thought she liked me when I visited Bakura several months ago. At least her actions seemed to project that."

"Then why kill her."

"So no one else can have her. I want her as my third wife, and that weapon she knows about could help us in our missions. Her family is rich and powerful. The technological industry on Bakura is very valuable for us." He turned to a shade of light green. "But right now I want my first wife to satisfy me."

Teitrak responded by turning to the same shade of light green.

The two of them cloaked.